Cruel April

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and then got too busy to post it, but the sentiment still applies.

April, you're fucking terrifying.
Last week it was snowing.
How can I trust my bare skin to this air?
Do you even remember February?
How this landscape was a frozen cemetery?
How these trees were tombstones?
Now crocuses erupt from open graves
Past clumps of rotting leaves.
Too soon, April, and yet too late!

My mom bought a house when I was grown.
After years of apartments, trailers, basements,
Moving, always moving, she has settled down.
April, I walk through you like that house.
Nature has no memory,
Or these buds wouldn't be so bold, so tender.
When God sent a flood to cover the Earth
And destroy every living thing,
When the waters finally rolled back
And the land appeared, God sent a rainbow
As a promise.
No one thought to hold Him to this.

Once I went away all summer
And when I came home, my baby sister
Took one look at me and burst into tears.
I dropped onto one knee and held her
As she sobbed wordlessly in my arms,
Like, April, you hold me now.

WWJD?

A week and a half or so ago, I read about Leelah Alcorn (warning: link contains her birth name for no good reason), a teenage trans girl from Ohio who had just committed suicide. Just before she did so, she had posted a Tumblr note (which has since been deleted??!!) in which she explained that her parents' systematic denial of support in the name of Christianity had led her to conclude she would never be able to transition successfully or be happy. They told her "God doesn't make mistakes" and brought her to "conversion" therapy. They took away her access to technology and outside support. She was made to feel so isolated and alone that she could see no future for herself, no way out.

I only started coming out as trans to my family in the last couple of years, and I'm a grown adult with strong community supports and a number of tools for taking care of myself. Plenty of family members have been great, and some are vocal about their acceptance of and even pride in me. But I've also heard things similar to what Leelah described before taking her own life: that I am delusional, wrong, and couldn't possibly know who I am or what to do about it. This from those who claim to know what Jesus would do.

There are plenty of statistics out there showing that trans and gender-nonconforming people attempt suicide at alarming rates. Studies attribute these attempts to experiencing greater physical and sexual violence—including institutional violence and healthcare discrimination—and homelessness. This study also cites family rejection as a "minority stressor" (57% who reported family rejection had attempted suicide).

Whatever excuses we are using as a culture to not care for trans people, to treat them as less than human, we need to stop. Whether it's religion, medicine, psychology, politics—whatever we're hiding behind, it's killing people. In her final blog post, Leelah pleaded with us to "fix society," or she will not be able to rest in peace. So get your shit together, people, or Leelah Alcorn's ghost will be at your fucking door!

Poem to Fix Society

If I were to pray,
I would pray for plowshares
To spring up where you brandish swords.

I would pray for my siblings everywhere,
Told that they're sick and broken
Until they break themselves open.

I would pray for no more
Prayers as weapons.

I would pray for no more
Scapegoats, no more
Sacrificial lambs.

But I don't pray anymore.
The rebel cast out cannot commune.

"Jesus was a rebel," you used to say.
Who would Jesus damn?

Thanks.

I love acknowledging and expressing expressing gratitude. And I hate. HATE. the idea of going around the circle on Thanksgiving and everyone saying what they are thankful for. Because holidays, especially holidays that hang heavy with the legacy that this one does.

Tonight I am full of gratitude, and rage. It's really a strange combo. Rage at a country, a culture that devalues black lives, trans lives, poor lives, women's lives (the list goes on). Every day. Every damn day. And gratitude for my community, people close and far, family of origin and chosen, who work to end all forms of violence, who work with and take leadership from those most affected by that violence. I see you.

Then there are the ways you see and hold me personally that literally keep me going, that make the difference between me going out the door every day and ending up under a blanket in the corner of a room for a week. Which! Is fine! When it needs to happen! I'm just saying.

I'm thankful for my housemates who leave me notes in Spanish, or wishing me a good Thursday. My dad who reads my Queerest Post Ever and sends me a super relevant article. A Certain Someone who comes up with completely unnecessary excuses to see me (move the chicken coop, yeah right). Friends who scheme with me on projects and jam with me on songs. Siblings who miss me over the miles. People I've just met who quote gender theory and radical MLK at me and then drive around a cemetery with me after dark. And so much more.

Oh. And so thankful that no one I know in real life or Facebook or anywhere else has said anything about how people in Ferguson shouldn't riot or how Michael Brown was a criminal or how news reports of the grand jury's decision not to indict his killer interrupted their viewing of "Dancing with the Stars" because I don't know what I would have done, so help me.

17 of Something

Shit. Don't blow 
My cover, but I just 
Did that thing where 
I was thankful.

This is how good people are to me. Do I deserve this? Probably not.

Burning Down the Sky

The last couple of days have been full of tough feelings of the heart kind and the body kind, and I don't even have the words. But I will say this about my drive home from some work meetings at sunset yesterday.

I Said "17 a Day" But I Didn't Say 17 of What 

Damn this sky tonight making 
Me want to open up my veins 
And bleed neon orange pink

OMG

On Sunday night I saw my friends' band play, and I'm really pleased that I've seen them enough times now that I get their songs stuck in my head. Also, I had the urge, on more than one occasion that night, to throw my hands in the air in a gesture that I associate with my evangelical Christian upbringing.

From infancy, I was surrounded by fervent, ecstatic prayer and song, often accompanied by tambourines, speaking in tongues, jumping, clapping, and raising of hands. It moved me greatly, until one day (around age 12) when it didn't, and I haven't looked back. Until the other night.

I didn't give in to the urge, even though I totally could've made it look rock-n-roll rather than holy roller. But I am still trying to put my finger on just what it was that made me want to reach out, reach up to something bigger than myself, hold my arms up to receive, or maybe surrender.

Short Poem for a Tall Spirit

How do I praise now?
How do I touch my heart to
Something that's not God?

Ooh, let's play a game. Rock concert or tent revival?

_____________________________________
Answers: 1. Rock. 2. Jesus. 3. Rock. 4. Jesus

Knock, knock. Who's there? Broken hearts.

It is surreal to be doing this again, so soon after the last time. It's not fair to me, and it's super unfair to those who were closer than I was to either or both of them.

I just want someone to tell me all her favorite jokes, because I never was any good at remembering jokes. And I want someone to hug me just a little too hard. And I always want to remember the sound of her voice the way I can right now.

She was the star of this magical adventure, which I think characterizes the kind of excitement and wonder and joy that seemed to constantly flow from and around her.

I started to write a song today, thinking about the people who leave us and go somewhere we can't follow. This is some of it.

Poem from a Song About Too Much Loss
for M.D.

Don't know where they go.
Can't be there, so I'll be here,
Picturing your face. 

In particular, this face right here.

What a (Lot of) Feeling(s)

I did that thing again where I watched an old favorite 80s movie and was slightly horrified. Last time, I was disturbed by Danny Zuko and friends' misogyny (while still enamored of their cars and greaser fashion). This time, I was really excited to show my roommate a movie that had both of her favorite things in it--dancing and feminism--and ended up feeling like I should apologize.

Alex, the main character, still comes across as badass and empowered, the way I remembered her--a teenage steel worker and nightclub dancer with her own warehouse apartment, pit bull, and gracefully aging mentor--except when it comes to the romantic interest. He's a patron of the club where she works, who turns out to be the owner of the steel mill where she also works. He essentially stalks her, even jokingly "firing" her, until she goes out with him. In one scene, she declines his offer of a ride, so he follows behind her in his Porsche as she rides home on her bicycle. The image of her grim face, even as she is back-lit by his headlights, will not leave my mind.

The dancing was okay but, because it was the 80s, marred by surreal MTV-esque sets and waaaay high-cut leotards. Also, you know, uncredited dancing by Marine Jahan as Jennifer Beals' double.

Poem for Flashdance

She's a maniac,
Dancing like never before.
What's that even mean?

Alex fucks with a traffic cop "in a world made of steel" (Pittsburgh).

Also I'm just going to pretend it hasn't been almost a month since my last "daily" blog post, because even thinking about how far out of my groove I've gotten makes me want to procrastinate more.

It's Love on Wheels

On Sunday I went rollerskating for the first time in 15 years, and maybe the second time in 30. I was really nervous. My knees already hurt when I climb stairs; I don't need to fall on them. But I didn't. In the two hours I was at Interskate 91 (warning: web page plays music you don't want anyone to think you're listening to on purpose), I went from wobbly barely-standing to fairly confident gliding around in circles. The memory of how to move was still inside me somewhere.

So that felt good.

I had a moment, too, one of many I've had over the last year or so, of feeling swept up in the romance of my life, of being in friend-love with this group of queers that had talked me into doing something youthful and silly and possibly slightly dangerous. Maybe it was the saccharine pop music blaring over the speakers at the skating rink or the memory of being 7 under disco lights holding my friend's hand as we spun around corners. Sometimes I think I'm missing romantic love in my life when I'm not dating anyone special, so it's nice to be reminded that I have everything I need and want if I just notice it.

Haiku for Rollerskating at 38

Bodies remember,
Then the heart can open up.
Mind comes in last.

Trying to skate backward (looks a lot like standing still).

NaPoWriMo

Seems like, for a blog that claims to produce a haiku a day (at least in theory), national poetry writing month (NaPoWriMo) would be no problem.

Seems like.

Except that shit's just been kind of all over the place lately. March went out like a fire-breathing, kickboxing, face-eating lion. A beautiful boy went away forever. I worked two jobs, was in a play, practiced with my mystery band, and had a bunch of doctor's appointments for chronic pain (yeah, that's still happening).

April and poetry always make me think of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland." Looking at it now, I think that he is calling April cruel because it is so full of renewal and reawakening and hope, and yet all this life springs from death: "breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire."

I don't know. I'm so tired.

Haiku for Cruel April

So many undone.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Broken images.

RIP Jimmy Crochet

Last night I attended a candlelight vigil for a beautiful person who passed away Saturday. Way, way too soon. We weren't super close, but I was crazy about him anyway. Everybody was, it seems.

I gave him a crochet lesson once. At first he was frustrated with the awkward, new feeling of the hook and yarn in his fingers. I invited him to think about other skills he had mastered--drawing and skateboarding--and how long it took his body to memorize those movements, and to have patience with himself.

As he practiced the chain stitch, we made up an elaborate history and etymology of crochet. He also told me about a high school girlfriend who had tried to teach him. It didn't work out (the relationship or the lesson), and he was determined to learn it now to spite her. I think he was mostly kidding.

Before long, he was on his second row of fairly even single-crochet stitches, so pleased with himself he didn't notice the time. He jumped up suddenly when he realized he was late for an open mic a friend of his was playing at.

Today I just want to be home crocheting mustaches in his memory.

Haiku for A.F.

You learned the chain stitch,
Which was invented in France
By Jimmy Crochet.

This looks a lot like the mustache he sometimes wore.

Pair of Hearts

You'd think, given my recent experience with re-watching Purple Rain, that I would go into watching Grease expecting some surprising revelations about how this favorite film from my formative years shaped who I am today.

But I was mostly too distracted by the overacting, overt misogyny, and disco influence on Travolta's dancing to notice much more than "Hey, those T-birds are some snappy dressers."

Until I got to this scene:

I don't know how I didn't make this connection before, but I almost have Kenickie's exact tattoo.

For the rest of the movie, I kept an eye out for what else I had internalized from time spent with Rydell High's inhabitants. Definitely the boys' fashion sense and not, thankfully, their contributions to rape culture. A sexual proclivity for hot rods and their drivers. A deep yearning for a date who can dance or at least strut.

And the lyrics to this song:

Haiku for Hopeless Devotion

My head is saying, 

"Fool, forget him." My heart is 

saying, "Don't let go."

If you force it, it breaks.

I learned a really beautiful and useful phrase last night, and it is 7 syllables long. I love it when that happens. Thanks, Q.

Haiku for Letting the Right One In

It's cold out, and you're
"Almost the key to my house."
Good thing there's windows.

Till a' the seas gang dry

I am so in love with this plant right now.

O my Luve's like a Schlumbergera.

I bought it at the grocery store for, I don't know, a dollar, last winter. I was living in a friend's attic, waiting to learn the fate of my 10-year relationship. (Negatory on the outcome, for those keeping score at home.)

It has moved with me twice. I haven't re-potted it. I have watered it sporadically and apologetically. The wind knocked it over a bunch before I weighed it down with a mug. I've never seen it flower before.

And this month it has begun to bloom its little heart out.

Haiku for My Heartbreak and Resiliency

My life is just like

[Insert clever simile

About this cactus].

The sincerest form of flattery

So last Thursday night a dear friend shows up to the Halloween show looking pretty damn stylish. Plaid shirt, argyle sweater vest, bow tie, black cap. I'm not about to ask, "What are you dressed as?" because I want to figure it out. I do almost say, "Hey man, you look extra fly tonight," but I'm shy sometimes.

A short while later, this friend wordlessly hands me a slip of paper that reads:

My jaw crashes through the floor and into the basement.

I then have several more costume details pointed out to me, like a plaid fanny pack, the patchy "future haircut" I got a couple months ago, and my wrist tattoos, which my friend has duplicated expertly with a sharpie.

Also, eight more little slips of paper with a haiku on each.

I was really touched, and I maybe it's because I'm self-obsessed and vain. And maybe it's because I felt loved, and seen, and appreciated. If I have done anything to deserve such honor and beauty in my life, I hope I keep on doing it.

Falling on my head like a new emotion

Because it seems I can't stop thinking and writing about how mind-blowingly sexy and tender autumn is:

Haiku for October 16, 2013

Sleeping in the breeze
Last night the leaves fell so hard
I thought it was rain

O My Sharp, Trifoliate Heart

Sure, I could have arranged the following lines into a more traditional haiku, but this is the way the phrase sprung, fully formed, into my head yesterday as I walked past this tree, on my block, under foggy, gray skies. Only later did I realize it was 17 syllables long.

I never claimed to be a purist.

Haiku for October 7, 2013

F*cking neon pink-
orange maple tree, you are
what my soul looks like!

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.

Almost a couple weeks ago, someone gave me (as in, "Hey what's this thing I just picked up off the ground? Here ya go!") a green, spiky orb on a short, thick stem. It was sharp enough to cause a delightfully tingly-ouchie sensation when I held it in my hand (after I had twirled the thing til the stem fell off).

I left this magical alien plant life on the dash of my car (like ya do), and over the course of several days, it dried and split open, revealing a shiny, dark brown nutshell with a light brown spot.

And it seems like a theme of this blog, and of my life (I guess there's some overlap there): transformation, a very solid, beautiful thing hidden inside a bizarre, prickly thing, which is also beautiful and thrilling. And sure, I could have researched any and discovered that it was a (SPOILER ALERT!) horse chestnut, but why take away the mystery?

Haiku for What the Last Two Weeks Gave Me

Do I like it more
When it's new, strange, and pointy
Or smooth, dark, and hard?

DEEZ NUTZ LOL

You had me at "subsolar equinoctial point."

Haiku for Autumn Equinox

Shadows get longer,
The moon starts to speak to me.
Fall is my lover.

www.themoonclock.com

Bonus round

Haiku for 2013

Why must I be a(n)
(Awkward-ass thirty-something)
Teenager in love?

In Memoriam

Haiku for Barbecue Day

i'm that little guy
walking home all by himself
wishing you were here